Saturday, July 18, 2015

President Obama Offers Criticism of the Criminal Justice System

As regular readers will know, I'm not always the biggest fan
of our President and his policies. But when circumstances and wont
make him so disposed, he is capable of making passionate, moving, and
clear-headed interventions in debates that are often un-touched or toxic.

President Obama recently toured a prison in
Oklahoma--incredibly, he is the first sitting President to tour a prison--where
he offered remarks on the injustice and impracticality of the the policies of
mass incarceration in the U.S. (from which the prison industry makes a
tremendous amount of money).

He reminded the
public that, "When [prisoners] describe their youth, these are young
people who made mistakes that aren’t that different from the mistakes I made,
and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. The difference is that they
did not have the kind of support structures, the second chances, the resources
that would allow them to survive those mistakes".

At a time when systematic and un-punished police violence,
indefensible economic inequality along racial lines, and a broken criminal
justice system are becoming increasingly unavoidable issues, the President's
call for attention to the way in which our prison and criminal justice system
reflects our priorities and values is welcome.

The U.S. rate of incarceration is amongst the highest in the
world, but focuses more on indiscriminate punishment--non-violent offenders are
swept up by long prison sentences which leave them no opportunities for
re-making their lives and impose a staggering burden on taxpayers--than on the
rehabilitation programs that are notable features of other far more successful
and less expensive criminal justice systems around the world.

Those caught up in our punitive criminal justice system are
disproportionately black, Latino, and poor, a result of both skewed and
often-racist law enforcement and an economic structure which leaves
large-swathes of historically-marginalized communities with few opportunities
and curtailed access to a shrinking public sector and the public goods provided
therein.

There will be many who are content to recite homilies about the
'deserving' nature of those condemned by birth, circumstances, or petty
offenses to spend a lifetime caught up in the U.S. prison system. But
those interested in promoting justice, developing a sustainable criminal
justice system, and in righting the wrongs of our society should take a close
look at the President's words and think about how we can reform existing
practice in a way that does justice, offers humanity, and attempts
rehabilitation.

About Me

I am from Northern California, and am the fifth generation of my family to have lived in the Golden State. Now I live next-door in the Silver State, where I research and write about colonialism and decolonization in Africa, teach European, African, environmental, and colonial history, and write this blog, mostly about politics, sometimes about history, and occasionally about travels or research.